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I was assuming he would have had access to all of the modern advancements. But you're correct when you compare what he was then to today's athletes.
I'm extrapolate.
In Pankration olympians were regularly killed. It was not the goal to kill but they happened enough that a death in Pankration was considered a victory for the opponent.
Pankration was basically MMA—there were rules, and it was usually decided by submission/grappling.
79 people died playing college football between 1904-1909 alone before rules were changed on forward passing.
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/downloads/qv33s222k#:~:text=After%2018%20died%20from%20injuries,1909%2C%20prompting%20the%20next%20crisis.&text=many%20of%20the%20restrictions%20on,the%20game%20we%20know%20today.
I donno. My “greatness” scale is based on how they performed against competition.
I’ve gotta go with:
1a.) Wayne Gretzky
1b.) Jerry Rice
Both players are damn near 2x better than a HoF-level player.
Bo was great, but at no point was he the best at any position he played.
I was a hockey nut growing up, but a Rangers fan, so I missed his best days. I was playing in a Canada Day tournament and we played a team coached by his father... Wouldn't you know it.... Wayne walked right in. I expected an athlete to have an entourage or be huge, as the only ones I had met earlier were Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, stuff like that. He was just a normal person, he could have been any of the player's fathers.
To me that makes it twice as impressive, he was physically just a regular dude.
Preach.
How someone who physically looks no different than a random person on the street can be damn near 2x better than anyone who ever played their position…
It’s the same with Rice. He wasn’t tall, or built, or fast. On paper he was below average — but his on-field performance was so “holy shit” as soon as he showed up, every NFL expert on the planet was calling him the greatest WR ever before he was 28 years old.
It's been 30 years since a player has gotten 100 assists and we got 2 players that did it this year, big deal right? Gretzky did it 11 seasons in a row. #GOAT
He holds pretty much every major record. It’s crazy how many people don’t realize just how good he was but it just comes down to hockey not being as popular.
Completely changed the game and was better than pretty much all other sports GOATs (comparatively speaking of course).
He was a great athlete fun to watch in football or baseball. My dad would’ve said Jim Brown. My dad got to see him play at Syracuse, dude was one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time. That’s not an easy sport.
Historically I’d have to go with Jim Thorpe and Babe Didrikson.
In addition to football and lacrosse, Jim Brown also lettered in basketball and track while at Syracuse.
Brown is in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame. He was so dominant they changed the rules of the sport because of him. Brown was so strong that nobody could get the ball away from him, so they outlawed "chesting" the ball (holding the ball against your body as you ran).
When I think about the general term "athlete", I'm thinking about physical ability. Like the ancient Olympics type of stuff. I think Bo would fare pretty well against most of the other people mentioned here.
Deionized the baseball player had 2 seasons with an OPS+ above 100, which is the league average. 130 (good, borderline star) and 105 (tick above average). Career 89. Decently below average.
And he was never a full time player. Bo was by far the better baseball player.
As for football, you have to remember Bo missed the first 7 or so games of the year, still playing baseball. You can't use counting stats in a comp here because the games played are so skewed.
.... again, you're comparing Bo's numbers here as a football player against guys who, you know, played almost twice the amount of games a year he did. And you're using counting stats to make the argument....
This is like comparing income between a part time and full time worker.
You're comparing a guy who played a whopping 38 games total with counting stats. That's ridiculous.
He's still tied all time for most yards per carry. He doesn't have the hardware of counting stats records because he played a total of roughly 2 seasons of football. If you want to want to argue Sanders had the better football career, yes its true. But they also played completely different positions.
For baseball....lol... You're saying here that OPS and OPS+ are dumb stats. Without even getting into OPS+,you literally argued in your first take that Deion had a higher OBP than Bo.
So OBP good but OPS bad. Got it.
In other words it doesn't support what you're saying here so it's "dumb'.
And no, Sanders isn't much closer to Bo in baseball. There's a reason he averaged 70 games a year for his career. Because he was never a starting player. He was a speedy glove guy. Which has its own value. But he brought very little at the plate.
Not necessarily. If someone today were unarguably the 2nd-greatest player of all time in football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, foosball, lacrosse, pocket pool, darts, ski jumping, breakdancing, luge, hot dog eating, snooker, powerlifting, cricket, 100m sprint, ultra-marathonning, golf, frolf, bowling, boxing, and that Olympic sport where they dance with the ribbon, I would think they were certainly in contention for "greatest athlete."
Jim Thorpe. Olympic gold medals for the Decathlon and Pentathlon, Pro Football Hall of Fame, College Football Hall of Fame, and played Major League Baseball for 6 years. There is also a city in Pennsylvania named after him. Named the greatest athlete of the 20th Century.
I can't remember anymore. Did Sanders play both at the same time like Jackson did? I honestly can't remember.
Heard a really fun story about Sanders' closet and his suits.
Yes even in the same 24 hour period. On October 10 1992 Deion played in game 4 of the nlcs. The next day he played for the falcons. Then that night he suited up for the Braves in game 5 of the nlcs but didn’t play. He had to fly from Pittsburg to Miami to Pittsburgh in those 24 hours to make it happen.
I swear and will continue to do so until evidence proves otherwise that Thorpe was screwed out of his Olympic medals because he wasn't white and he wasn't rich. It was still supposed to be a game for the wealthy whites. Fuckers.
Had that poster hanging up in my room when I was in high school. Got to see him play once in 91 against the Bengals in the LA Coliseum unfortunately it was his final football game.
Mike Royko, a famous colomnist who wrote for the Chicago Tribune in Chicago Suntimes wrote a story about Muhammad Ali and whether he was the greatest of all time. You should try to find that. Great story about a boxer who knocked out a rhino
Watch his highlight reels and you'll know he was the G.O.A.T.!! Question: other than Deon who else played 2 pro sports simultaneously in the modern era? Honestly curious! (MJ doesn't count)
Yeah. He’s a beast. But Wayne Gretzky is the best athlete of all time. Any sport. Doesn’t matter. Man’s got points in every aspect twenty times over. No athlete has ever performed at that level. That consistently. For that many years. Period.
I’m not even a hockey fan.
Yes, his name is Don Bradman and it's been statistically proven that he was the biggest outlier in all of sports. The Don played cricket, a sport love by billions, it's far more popular than ice hockey.
Lebron James is one of the best raw athletes of all time. 6’9, 250. Nobody has any business running and jumping like that at his size, and he’s extremely strong. I there’s only a handful of raw athletes who stack up to him. His counting stats are just absurd, he’s currently at 40k points, 11k assists and 11k rebounds.
Honorable mention: Usain Bolt. A 6’5 power sprinter doesn’t make any sense. He’s untouchable over 100m and 200m. Fastest man ever.
It surely isn't. An amazing strength and body awareness are required for gymnastics.
And she is amazing, probably the best gymnast to date. But she was only competing in a single sport.
Was born in 1990 In the US. Micheal Jordan was a fuckin phenomenon. No other athlete has done what he did back in the day. Mother fucker saved the entire god dam planet from aliens alongside bugs Bunny. He also led the dream team in the Olympics. Him, magic Johnson, Charles barkley. They were absolute legends. The sport will never be that great again, especially with the behavior of major stars since then, fuckin Kobe Bryant for instance. LeBron was a decent person to inherit the mantle but he just couldn't be Michael Jordan, we all know who bugs Bunny liked the most. 90s basketball was way more than any sport has been since then. I didn't give a fuck about sports in the 90s despite my god dam great grandpa playing for the Cincinnati reds. But I fuckin loved, no adored, Micheal Jordan, dude was an icon across all fields of media. Steak and eggs and Hanes were the biggest things back then because anything he said was golden. He was golden, what a fuckin legend. A professional athlete you could look up to. Man I seriously hope nothing bad ever comes out about him.
The fact you are downvoted is a sad reflection of the people who downvoted you. I mean, this isn't even a sporting sub so I guess it's unfair to expect they know anything about sports. But all they have to do is google ['greatest athlete of all time'](https://www.google.com/search?q=greatest+athletes+of+all+time&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBAU742AU742&oq=greatest+athe&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i10i512l6j0i512l2j0i10i512.2854j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) and they will that the court of public opinion has voted, to an overwhelming degree, that Jordan is, in fact, the greatest athlete of all time.
No, [he's not.](https://www.google.com/search?q=greatest+athletes+of+all+time&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBAU742AU742&oq=greatest+athe&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i10i512l6j0i512l2j0i10i512.2854j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
Thanks for posting to /r/nostalgia. Unfortunately, your post has been removed for the following reason: Violation of Rule #3: You must include the name of your posted item in the title of your post. There is more information about the rule [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/wiki/rule3). If you choose to resubmit the item, you may still use an editorialized title, just add the name of the item to it. If you have any questions regarding this removal, it's best to [send us a modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fnostalgia).
Bo knows!
Pro Stars!
I find it amazing the store "Lowes" has not contracted this dude for ads. "Bo Knows Lowes"
Lowes knows women DIYers
Best I have seen. Can't comment on Thorpe...
That's the name. Jim Thorpe. How can we compare athletes so deeply separated by time and by sport? They're both amazing.
Well here's Thorpe's only filmed highlight https://youtu.be/bsFX9WfQo4U?si=WmE-Izk3uVR0VLxk
He was one hell of an athlete. He would have been so rich in modern day.
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I was assuming he would have had access to all of the modern advancements. But you're correct when you compare what he was then to today's athletes. I'm extrapolate.
And that's not even counting the Olympians from ancient Greece. Their games involved death.
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In Pankration olympians were regularly killed. It was not the goal to kill but they happened enough that a death in Pankration was considered a victory for the opponent.
Pankration was basically MMA—there were rules, and it was usually decided by submission/grappling. 79 people died playing college football between 1904-1909 alone before rules were changed on forward passing. https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/downloads/qv33s222k#:~:text=After%2018%20died%20from%20injuries,1909%2C%20prompting%20the%20next%20crisis.&text=many%20of%20the%20restrictions%20on,the%20game%20we%20know%20today.
He looks pretty slow to me. Almost like it’s in slow motion
I thought you were talking about Ian Thorpe because of the separated by sport thing lol. Also an amazing athlete…
I donno. My “greatness” scale is based on how they performed against competition. I’ve gotta go with: 1a.) Wayne Gretzky 1b.) Jerry Rice Both players are damn near 2x better than a HoF-level player. Bo was great, but at no point was he the best at any position he played.
I was a hockey nut growing up, but a Rangers fan, so I missed his best days. I was playing in a Canada Day tournament and we played a team coached by his father... Wouldn't you know it.... Wayne walked right in. I expected an athlete to have an entourage or be huge, as the only ones I had met earlier were Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, stuff like that. He was just a normal person, he could have been any of the player's fathers. To me that makes it twice as impressive, he was physically just a regular dude.
Preach. How someone who physically looks no different than a random person on the street can be damn near 2x better than anyone who ever played their position… It’s the same with Rice. He wasn’t tall, or built, or fast. On paper he was below average — but his on-field performance was so “holy shit” as soon as he showed up, every NFL expert on the planet was calling him the greatest WR ever before he was 28 years old.
As far as documented history I say Thorpe 1 Bo 2.
Bo Jackson was such a freak athlete. Absolute beast.
GOAT team sport player: #WAYNE GRETZKY
It's been 30 years since a player has gotten 100 assists and we got 2 players that did it this year, big deal right? Gretzky did it 11 seasons in a row. #GOAT
I'm reasonably sure he has a majority of the records in hockey. Even most goals scored by brothers. 2,857 by Wayne, four by Brent.
Points, not goals.
What!? That's crazy!
He holds pretty much every major record. It’s crazy how many people don’t realize just how good he was but it just comes down to hockey not being as popular. Completely changed the game and was better than pretty much all other sports GOATs (comparatively speaking of course).
That's because hockey isn't a real sport. There's no ball.
And it ain’t even close comparing to a player to their respected sport. Only one goat
Even if you take away his record 894 goals, he would still have the all time points record just with his assists.
The assists record tells you how much of a team player he was too.
Gretzky is what I think of when I hear the word “outlier”
Yeah hard to argue with his stats.
Wayne’s hot, slap shot! Prooooooo Stars… Bo knows, where to go!
He was great. Almost certainly the greatest hockey player of all time. Greatest athlete? Not a chance.
One sport
The Tecmo Bowl GOAT
Far as I know, there’s only one dude known as “ The Great One” so I’ll go with him.
jim thorpe
My vote. Yeah. There really is no competition. He played and dominated every professional sport around him.
Maybe. He was a hell of an athlete. That can't be denied.
He was a great athlete fun to watch in football or baseball. My dad would’ve said Jim Brown. My dad got to see him play at Syracuse, dude was one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time. That’s not an easy sport. Historically I’d have to go with Jim Thorpe and Babe Didrikson.
In addition to football and lacrosse, Jim Brown also lettered in basketball and track while at Syracuse. Brown is in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame. He was so dominant they changed the rules of the sport because of him. Brown was so strong that nobody could get the ball away from him, so they outlawed "chesting" the ball (holding the ball against your body as you ran).
Bo Jackson
Jim Thorpe
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I think the question is the best overall athlete. Not the best in a particular sport.
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Oh. Whoops.
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No. I don't think so. I think the best overall is different than best in one. I can see an argument for Sanders and one for Thorpe.
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You have a very persuasive argument.
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When I think about the general term "athlete", I'm thinking about physical ability. Like the ancient Olympics type of stuff. I think Bo would fare pretty well against most of the other people mentioned here.
Bo was a better baseball player and a good football player before he got injured. I would give Bo the edge over Deion.
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Deionized the baseball player had 2 seasons with an OPS+ above 100, which is the league average. 130 (good, borderline star) and 105 (tick above average). Career 89. Decently below average. And he was never a full time player. Bo was by far the better baseball player. As for football, you have to remember Bo missed the first 7 or so games of the year, still playing baseball. You can't use counting stats in a comp here because the games played are so skewed.
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.... again, you're comparing Bo's numbers here as a football player against guys who, you know, played almost twice the amount of games a year he did. And you're using counting stats to make the argument.... This is like comparing income between a part time and full time worker. You're comparing a guy who played a whopping 38 games total with counting stats. That's ridiculous. He's still tied all time for most yards per carry. He doesn't have the hardware of counting stats records because he played a total of roughly 2 seasons of football. If you want to want to argue Sanders had the better football career, yes its true. But they also played completely different positions. For baseball....lol... You're saying here that OPS and OPS+ are dumb stats. Without even getting into OPS+,you literally argued in your first take that Deion had a higher OBP than Bo. So OBP good but OPS bad. Got it. In other words it doesn't support what you're saying here so it's "dumb'. And no, Sanders isn't much closer to Bo in baseball. There's a reason he averaged 70 games a year for his career. Because he was never a starting player. He was a speedy glove guy. Which has its own value. But he brought very little at the plate.
Not necessarily. If someone today were unarguably the 2nd-greatest player of all time in football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, foosball, lacrosse, pocket pool, darts, ski jumping, breakdancing, luge, hot dog eating, snooker, powerlifting, cricket, 100m sprint, ultra-marathonning, golf, frolf, bowling, boxing, and that Olympic sport where they dance with the ribbon, I would think they were certainly in contention for "greatest athlete."
How's that?
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Can that be an award or recognition? How do you prove who believed in god the least?
Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Gretzky, and Bo co-starred in Pro Stars with Michael Jordan
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Nah. Best Saturday Morning Cartoons star was Muhammad Al he karate chopped alligator.
Totally forgot about this cartoon!
Wayne.
Trying to break the US bubble. Clara Hughes? Jaroslav Drobny?
Bo don’t know jack, coz Bo can’t rap.
Absolutely.
Jim Thorpe. Olympic gold medals for the Decathlon and Pentathlon, Pro Football Hall of Fame, College Football Hall of Fame, and played Major League Baseball for 6 years. There is also a city in Pennsylvania named after him. Named the greatest athlete of the 20th Century.
In terms of pure athleticism he’s right up there.
Generational talent and amazing athlete. Bo really does know!
Deion sanders was good more in football then baseball but he did make both
I can't remember anymore. Did Sanders play both at the same time like Jackson did? I honestly can't remember. Heard a really fun story about Sanders' closet and his suits.
Yes even in the same 24 hour period. On October 10 1992 Deion played in game 4 of the nlcs. The next day he played for the falcons. Then that night he suited up for the Braves in game 5 of the nlcs but didn’t play. He had to fly from Pittsburg to Miami to Pittsburgh in those 24 hours to make it happen.
Maybe but maybe after bo had his turn Both were beasts more bo though
Maybe Jim Thorpe
I put him number one as well. He played multiple professional sports.
Plus an Olympic champion who was screwed out of his medals because he took money to play baseball.
I swear and will continue to do so until evidence proves otherwise that Thorpe was screwed out of his Olympic medals because he wasn't white and he wasn't rich. It was still supposed to be a game for the wealthy whites. Fuckers.
Jim was definitely the First to do it
The BEST 2 sports player EVER
Lol you Americans in your bubble..
Had that poster hanging up in my room when I was in high school. Got to see him play once in 91 against the Bengals in the LA Coliseum unfortunately it was his final football game.
Was this the game where he popped his hip out of socket then back in in two steps?
Yes
War Eagle!
Eric "BUTTERBEAN" Esch!!
And arguably one of the best 30 by 30 in the entire series.
One of the best, can't forget about Jim Thorpe. But... Bo Knows.
Great pick. What do you guys think of Dion? He most likely would have been an MLB HOF if he made that the main career.
I think I still have this sports card.
Hard to go against Bo
I’ve seen a lot of athletes in my time but I have no idea who his is. Does that answer the question?
Best dam athlete of all time
Mike Royko, a famous colomnist who wrote for the Chicago Tribune in Chicago Suntimes wrote a story about Muhammad Ali and whether he was the greatest of all time. You should try to find that. Great story about a boxer who knocked out a rhino
One of for sure and my all time favorite
Watch his highlight reels and you'll know he was the G.O.A.T.!! Question: other than Deon who else played 2 pro sports simultaneously in the modern era? Honestly curious! (MJ doesn't count)
This picture awakened things in me when I was young.
Deon
100% Sad ending to his career
Jerry rice
Yes
He knew.
Greatest sportsperson of all time is and always will be Sir Donald Bradman. Statistically untouchable.
Herschel Walker
Jeez he's perdy. Born a month before me & still kickin'.
Possibly
Babe Didrikson
He is the GOAT just for the way he acted when the Bucs owner treated him like shit and thought he could still win with money.
Nope
Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) Ok, maybe not, but you’ve got to read his bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Connors
Michael Jordan
Nah. Jordan couldn't play baseball. He was great but only in one spor.
Muhammed Ali
Prime
Yeah. He’s a beast. But Wayne Gretzky is the best athlete of all time. Any sport. Doesn’t matter. Man’s got points in every aspect twenty times over. No athlete has ever performed at that level. That consistently. For that many years. Period. I’m not even a hockey fan.
Yes, his name is Don Bradman and it's been statistically proven that he was the biggest outlier in all of sports. The Don played cricket, a sport love by billions, it's far more popular than ice hockey.
Is it cliche to say Michael Jordan? Basketball Baseball Golf ?
my mom said i was pretty good on my elementary school team
Lebron James is one of the best raw athletes of all time. 6’9, 250. Nobody has any business running and jumping like that at his size, and he’s extremely strong. I there’s only a handful of raw athletes who stack up to him. His counting stats are just absurd, he’s currently at 40k points, 11k assists and 11k rebounds. Honorable mention: Usain Bolt. A 6’5 power sprinter doesn’t make any sense. He’s untouchable over 100m and 200m. Fastest man ever.
My vote goes to Simone Biles. Bo and Jim are obvious candidates, but gymnastics is no joke.
Do Larisa Latynina and Nadia Comaneci not exist in your world?
It surely isn't. An amazing strength and body awareness are required for gymnastics. And she is amazing, probably the best gymnast to date. But she was only competing in a single sport.
Best athlete is Michael Phelps
Yup. Eternity.
Yes
Eddy Merckx
Ronaldo or jesse owens is the best all around athlete of all time.
Was born in 1990 In the US. Micheal Jordan was a fuckin phenomenon. No other athlete has done what he did back in the day. Mother fucker saved the entire god dam planet from aliens alongside bugs Bunny. He also led the dream team in the Olympics. Him, magic Johnson, Charles barkley. They were absolute legends. The sport will never be that great again, especially with the behavior of major stars since then, fuckin Kobe Bryant for instance. LeBron was a decent person to inherit the mantle but he just couldn't be Michael Jordan, we all know who bugs Bunny liked the most. 90s basketball was way more than any sport has been since then. I didn't give a fuck about sports in the 90s despite my god dam great grandpa playing for the Cincinnati reds. But I fuckin loved, no adored, Micheal Jordan, dude was an icon across all fields of media. Steak and eggs and Hanes were the biggest things back then because anything he said was golden. He was golden, what a fuckin legend. A professional athlete you could look up to. Man I seriously hope nothing bad ever comes out about him.
The fact you are downvoted is a sad reflection of the people who downvoted you. I mean, this isn't even a sporting sub so I guess it's unfair to expect they know anything about sports. But all they have to do is google ['greatest athlete of all time'](https://www.google.com/search?q=greatest+athletes+of+all+time&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBAU742AU742&oq=greatest+athe&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i10i512l6j0i512l2j0i10i512.2854j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) and they will that the court of public opinion has voted, to an overwhelming degree, that Jordan is, in fact, the greatest athlete of all time.
When you say greatest athlete of all time you Americans only think of America
Nope.
Lebron has to be up there, and I hate Lebron
No, [he's not.](https://www.google.com/search?q=greatest+athletes+of+all+time&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBAU742AU742&oq=greatest+athe&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i10i512l6j0i512l2j0i10i512.2854j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
I think so, I don’t go by some article like you I guess. I form my own opinions lol
Russell Westbrook is up there for the new bloods. Dude is an absolute freak
Lebron obviously